Gravatar – Your Solution to Your Branding in Blogging Comments

If you have a website online and it is using the most popular blogging platform, WordPress, then chances are you are wondering how people are commenting on your posts and their icon is displaying with their comments.

The answer is Gravatar. All you need to do is go to Gravatar and setup an account with your primary email address that you use to setup your websites, comment on other people’s content, etc.

Once you setup your Gravatar image on the email address you use to comment on other people’s blogs, you’ll notice that your image will suddenly appear! Now, any service that uses Gravatar to pull in avatar images will show your icon!

What is Gravatar?

A Gravatar is a Globally Recognized Avatar. You upload it and create your profile just once, and then when you participate in any Gravatar-enabled site, your image will automatically display in those locations. The Gravatar service is completely free to use. No catches, no excuses, no fluff, there is no reason not to setup your Gravatar today.

This site supports Gravatar natively, so if you look through the comments on our Google Plus Guide, you’ll see a ton of comments with images. These people were smart to setup a Gravatar because it catches the eye. You should setup yours immediately!

How to Setup Gravatar

The process is extremely easy.

1. Click here to go to Gravatar.
2. Insert the email address you use to comment on blogs with.
3. Insert a password
4. Verify your email address.
5. Click “Add one by clicking here” to the error you don’t have an image setup yet.
6. 
7. Click one of the options above (on their website, not here) and follow the instructions.
8. Select which rating your image is. For most, you’ll use the “G” rating.
9. Done!

Now, whenever you comment on other people’s blogs, WordPress powered websites, and on any other site that is powered by Gravatar avatar technology, your image will appear!

The Secrets to Internet Marketing Success

Hey guys, today I thought I’d share with you the epiphany that I’ve had over the past month working my new businesses and helping others with their Internet and Social Marketing.

The fact of the matter is, the biggest secret out there is action.

Action?!? That’s it?

Yes! Over 90% of the people that I talk to always give me a line of excuses and reasons for their failures. In fact, the absolute number one reason they are failing is failure to act.

See, these guys and gals are in a vicious cycle of constantly learning. Learning itself is fine, however, if all you do is buy books, courses, seminars, and pay for consulting from guys like me, well, you are still going to fail. They think that all of the research is absolutely required before they can even dream of starting a website or business. They are paralyzed by the fear of failure or negative perceptions.

Please do me a huge favor over the new 2-4 weeks. Come up with a plan of action of things you will set out to accomplish. I don’t care if it is launching your first website, or setting up your first email campaign, or establishing your business self on social media, just set out, and do it. Now.

Here’s the excuses. But Scott, I can’t design a professional looking site like you have. Scott, I have no clue how to write email marketing campaigns. Scott, I don’t know what to promote. Scott, I’m not sure what to sell on eBay. Scott, I need a logo first. Scott, I don’t know how to create a landing page. Please STTTTTOOPPPP!

I hear this over and over again. To tell you the truth, it is quite frustrating. You know what the issue is? Your desire for perfection. When I got my start online 16 years ago, I spent my first year perfecting a site before I launched it. It failed. If I had the ability to go back in time, I would have thrown that perfection mantra right out of the window and started producing sites left and right, ugly as they may be.

Here’s the deal. You probably come from a world of working for other people at a 9-5 job. Your boss fed you tasks for the day and you completed them to the best of your ability. Over time, your boss criticized you because “we don’t pay you to think” so you went out of your way to follow orders and became a robot.

In the business of Internet marketing, you need to completely change your mentality to be a forward thinker, a person willing to throw a site online without it being perfect, and a person willing to learn by failing.

You see, there has been no course, or guru lecture that has helped me more than the lessons I learned by failing. I’m telling you, right here, right now, start taking action and put down all the courses, books, and website materials and set out to create your first website.

Once you have a site online, then you start creating the original content that ties you to your business. You start creating a fan base who wants to know more about you, your history, and your knowledge. From there, then you can start worrying about cleaning up the site design, perfecting your email campaigns, and testing various landing pages, color schemes, etc.

The successful people I have coached over the years in business marketing are the ones who hung up the phone, removed all of their distractions, and got to work building their first sites. By following their course of action, their first sites were ugly as heck, but they continued making content, continued marketing their website to others, and then after a short time, they started making money, with some of the ugliest websites I’ve ever seen. Now? Well, they took their money earned, reinvested it into a professional design, reinvested it into further education, and now they are Internet marketing rock stars.

You need to stop focusing on being perfect and start a massive action plan, immediately. You’ll thank me later, trust me.

Words on failing. Guys, you need to remove the negative from the word failure and realize that your failures are quite simply moments to learn from. Think of it this way, say you are married and you want to see that awesome blockbuster in the movie theater. You ask your wife or husband “Hey hun, can we go see XYZ, it looks good!” and they return with “Not today dear, I’ve got a headache and it would just make it worse.” That’s a simple exchange right? You’ll probably shrug it off and move on. Right? Well, in business, it is the same way. If you are trying to get someone in your business or to order your shiny do-hickey, and they tell you no? Treat that rejection the same way! “Well, they said no, it isn’t the right fit for them, I wonder if Sally would be interested (to go to the movies with me or, in business, enter my business/buy my product)?”

Take your failures, bounce it off of you, and move on. Whatever you do, don’t take failure personally. Everyone in business experiences failures, however, it is the ones who pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and continue forward that succeed.

Anyway, I hope this post inspired some of you out there to stop the learning cycle and start taking action. By taking action, congratulations, you’ve stumbled on the secrets to your future success.